Empty Bowls returns to fight area hunger

In 2006, local potter Pam Duncan was inspired to use her talents to combat and raise awareness of hunger in Southeast Missouri.

Along with other potters and interested parties, Duncan started the city's first Empty Bowls project, an idea with roots in other places that had never been tried here.

The project brought in $3,600 for local food pantries just as the holiday season got underway. Since then, Duncan has moved away, but the project she helped found continues.

Tickets are now on sale for this year's Empty Bowls event, which will be Nov. 4. For a minimum "donation" of $10, the purchaser gets a ticket at a soup-and-bread dinner and a ceramic bowl created by a local potter to eat the soup from.

The dinner's simplicity is symbolic. "It's not supposed to be a four-course banquet meal, it's supposed to be a subsistence-type meal, which is all many families can afford during the holidays," said Denise Lincoln, director of the Cape Area Family Resource Center.

Lincoln worked closely with Duncan on last year's Empty Bowls, and this year she's helping organize the Empty Bowls event.

Tickets are available at Grace Cafe, Garden Gallery and the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, along with the resource center.

Last year, 300 bowls were created, but this year organizers are expanding to 500 in the hopes of getting more money for the local Salvation Army, Red Star Baptist Church Food Pantry and the Bootheel Food Bank. All the money raised goes to the food pantries, as all supplies and labor are donated.

Julie Bricknell has led local potters in creating 200 of the bowls, while Southeast Missouri State University students under the direction of sculpture professor Benjie Heu will produce the other 300.

"The university art department's interest grew greatly through the experience last year," Lincoln said. "They really upped the ante."

Southeast's Student Dietetic Association will prepare the meal and present information about hunger.

Bricknell said organizing this year's Empty Bowls will be a bit more challenging without Duncan's presence. But others have stepped up to help the efforts, she said. Students from Notre Dame Regional High School are helping to sell tickets, and Creative Ewe is donating bowls that members of the public can decorate for the event.

Bricknell said any businesses or other organizations interested in getting behind the project are welcome to do so.

Lincoln said a display has also been put together that organizations can use to help raise awareness.

For more information on Empty Bowls, call the Cape Area Family Resource Center at 334-8170.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182